


Cloud Hands

by lferion



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Atmospheric Conditions, Bad day made better, Children, Community: mini_nanowrimo, Gen, Mini-Nanowrimo, Natural Wonders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-16
Updated: 2011-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-26 03:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Come outside Mr Declan! Mr. Declan, you have to come see!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cloud Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Initially inspired by the frustration of the day (though Declan's day was worse than mine -- I didn’t go into detail -- and then the pic from today's mini-nano prompts/inspirations (9 Nov 11) got involved. Plus the quote.
> 
> Thanks go to Morgynleri for the beta once-over.

* * *

_Don’t think about the future. Just be here now. Don’t think about the past. Just be here now.”_ ~Ram Dass  


* * *

Some days, there was no focus. Some days, everything took longer, cost more (money, time, energy, emotional investment, sheer bloody-mindedness…) and it still took some kind of miracle (or luck, or Helen Magnus, sometimes luck _and_ Helen Magnus) to come out even. And some days there was no winning at all. Fortunately, this wasn’t one of those, just one of the nibbled-to-death-by- _anatidae_ kind. Declan almost snapped at the child who skittered into his office (for the fourth time since the lunch he hadn’t had time to eat) and tugged urgently at his sleeve, but he caught the words back before they could escape. An upset youngling would not improve matters.

“Come outside Mr Declan! Mr. Declan, you have to come see! Come see what the sky is doing!” Tsopho was bouncing with excitement. “The sky is doing an amazing thing!”

The fact that Declan had to stop himself from going into hyper-alert deal-with-the-threat mode told him he really should get up, get away from the desk and yes, maybe even go see something amazing happening in the sky. (Which, given this particular child, could be anything from a flight of starlings to a double rainbow to the sudden appearance of invisible airships — Declan still wasn’t sure what that one had been about.) He allowed Tsopho to pull him up and out the door, though he reclaimed his sleeve for the longer trek down the hall and then up the stairs to the roof (the boy was too impatient for the elevator, and it stopped before it got to the upper attic anyway.) The children were not allowed on the roof unaccompanied — though since Declan was with Tsopho, the boy wasn’t alone, now was he? Neither of them were alone in fact.

The air was crisp on the roof, and the late afternoon was overcast. The breeze had a bite to it that was welcome after the close atmosphere inside. (The air-exchange systems in the Sanctuary were top notch; it wasn’t the actual _air_ that was stifling on a day like today.) Declan felt his shoulders easing and lungs expanding being out from under a roof, however high the ceiling. The tumbling clouds had all kinds of shapes in them, but that was apparently not the amazing sky-thing Tsopho wanted him to see.

“Look this way! This way over the river, over the river there!” The boy’s small hands were pushing at him to turn around, to look west rather than at the darkening east.

“You are very persistent, aren’t you? Of course you are.” Declan’s expression was somewhere between rueful and conspiratorial as he smiled down at Tsopho, his opalescent hair fanning out like the feathers it would be in a few more years. Declan turned as he was bid, and looked out and up at the sky. The clouds had gathered themselves into streamers that looked like hands, pulling open a thin place for the sun to shine through, bright silver in the midst of foaming grey, the skyline across the river a dark silhouette, made fantastic and other-worldly under such a sky. Awesome indeed.  
Even more amazing, there was nothing Abnormal about it. It was not cloud-sprites or weather-shapers or anything of that kind making it happen, but a simple marvel of physics, of atmospheric interplay. It was so easy to forget that the ordinary world was full of wonders too, to get caught up in the job, in responsibilities and planning, all that, and neglect the present, the immediate moment.

Tsophos was swinging from Declan’s arm, looking out at the glowing clouds. The hands were raveling away in the wind, but the sun was still shining through the thinner place. “Thank you, Tsophos,” Declan said softly. “I did want to see this.”

The child grinned. “Thought so,” he said with satisfaction.

* * *

* * *


End file.
